(en) France, Coordination of Anarchist Groups (CGA) IAL #95 - The links between the state and fascism, the example of Greece (fr)

Greece is a country that is a very good example of the fluctuations of capitalism: an 
agricultural economy and exhausted by wars and dictatorships which came in a period of 
prosperity that lasted thirty years and eventually became the country Europe's largest 
debtor to the IMF. ---- For two years, the people in "survival" mode. It makes huge 
efforts to pay real property taxes levied by the Governement (most Greek families owning), 
amounting to 1_500 euros for a small house or a large apartment for a family and are 
incorporated into the electricity bill, people who have no choice but to pay or remain 
without electricity. Worse, under the new legislation, those who are unable to pay can be 
imprisonn?es if their debt reached 5_000 euros.

The cost of living has also been boosted by the VAT was increased to 23% by making the 
basic expenses (housing, feeding and moving) astronomical in terms of the average wage 
(586 euros minimum wage for workers and workers over the age of 25 and 510 euros for the 
younger ones), and that the condition already have a job. This is not the case for 30% of 
the population and about 50% of young people today. According to the results of a survey 
of a large bourgeois newspaper in the last quarter of 2012, the unemployment rate among 
women was 29.7% against 23.3% for men and 57.8% for young people. It should be noted that 
this rate reached 65% for young women.

In this situation, capital and the state have shown their true face major international 
clubs have closed one by one (among them the French: Natixis, Credit Agricole, Saturn, 
Fnac, Carrefour) by laying off hundreds of employees ? e ? s. Local employers have 
benefited from huge unemployment further exploit their young employee ? e ? s working in 
black and because they are well aware that there is virtually no possibility of union 
mobilization. Once an employee ? e ? e on strike or opens his mouth, he or she is quickly 
dismissed and replaced ? e ? e the same day by another applicant ? e ? honest job.

In addition, demonstrations, protests, strikes ... tend to stop because people began to 
despair of the situation and think that the fight does not give results. The latest 
protests that took place concerning the project "Athena", a reform of the education 
system. Several public schools (especially in rural areas) are deleted or merged and the 
number of seats in each promo decreases.





Repression against the popular movement and targeted repression against the libertarian 
movement

The government has suppressed popular movements using a wide pallete of tools, ranging 
from beatings in protest by the police, more targeted police operations harassment. Within 
the popular movement, because it is the most active element, the repression suffered the 
libertarian community is immense. In a period of a few months, more than six-run places 
were attacked and sometimes expelled permanently as the historical anarchist squat, Villa 
Amalias who were 23 years of struggle. In addition, although many activists ? e ? s was 
arrested during the recent protests, there are currently the problem of suspended 
sentences related to years of political mobilization that can be triggered with a new 
arrest. Basically, the state suspended sentences blackmail worked well against future 
mobilizations.

Another form of repression is also the fact qu'Exharcheia, historically anarchist 
neighborhood of Athens, a place of expression, but also a meeting place and meeting 
activists ? e ? s has been completely transformed in recent years on central square, 
formerly a place for debates, concerts and food support or even neighborhood meetings, 
there are now as drug trafficking, organized by members of the mafia. It has implemented a 
crackdown that has worked even better than that of the State in scaring the activist world 
and removing the neighborhood its political character, turning it into a place where drug 
dealing, shootings and rape are part of everyday life. Mafia plays a role of para-state 
repression, encouraged by the State largely covers its activities.

The fascist-revolution against Greece

A side of the police and para-state through the mafia crackdown, develops a fascist 
movement, which is becoming more openly as a political option for the bourgeoisie. Founded 
in 1987, the Golden Dawn fascist movement is organized according to the same pattern of 
organization that all neo-fascist organizations in the world, with the recruitment of 
members in gyms or sports clubs and youth.

In the period preceding the crisis, fascist, relatively marginal movement, was held under 
financial infusion part of the bourgeoisie, and the center-right parties to the extreme 
institutional right (LAOS New Democracy), seeing a strike force and an occasional support. 
This semi-clandestine, concentrating its activities on militant attacks ? e ? s 
revolutionary and progressive, and xenophobic and homophobic attacks point. Related to 
some of the nostalgic state of the dictatorship of the colonels device, the fascist 
movement maintained and continues to maintain links with the "deep state" Greek, including 
the Secret Service. Its founder, Nikolaos Michaloliakos has been officially paid by the 
Greek secret services (KYP).

With a large network of sympathy within the Greek police, fascist movement could count on 
the support of the state's strategy of terror apparatus. Was able to see police and 
fascists work hand in hand in attacks against popular neighborhoods where they lived many 
immigrant ? Artists ? e ? s, and the cops intervene after fascist attacks to protect the 
aggressors when they below the face of popular self-defense. In a pattern that is 
sometimes found in France, fascist attack, and when anti-fascist fight back, the police 
repress them.

If officially LAOS, because of a "European" turn in 2004, says sever ties with Golden 
Dawn, informal ties persist, facilitated by ideological convergence. After 2005 to 2007 
supported another nationalist, the party of the Patriotic Alliance, Golden Dawn presents 
for the first time only in 2009 legislative and gets 0.29% of the vote, or 2,000 votes.

The rise

Golden Dawn

Since the beginning of the crisis, all parties who participated in the last government 
(and voted austerity measures) have lost much of their voters. The famous PASOK (Greek PS) 
fell from 40% to 12%, New Democracy (center right) from 40% to 29% and the party of the 
extreme right LAOS found himself outside parliament. One could say that the pro-austerity 
parties (especially the center) collapsed. In this context, some more important of the 
Greek society is moving towards an openly fasciste_ movement: the Golden Dawn party.

This party has developed highlighting the historical themes of fascism revolutionary 
nationalism discourse "_antisyst?me_" anti-capitalism "_romantique_" / Semitic (attacking 
the "_finance internationale_" associated with Jews in a classic anti-Semitic rh?orique, 
while calling for national unity between employers and Greek proletarians ? that ? s 
against "_l'?tranger_" the "_troika_" and "_the mondialisme_"), racism and xenophobia. 
This posture "_rebelle_" nationalist "_sociale_" allowed him to gradually pick up protest 
votes and despair of voters located ? e ? s center to the traditional extreme right 
425_000 getting votes, or 6.92 % in the elections of May 2012. The fascist party has 
received a permanent promotion by the bourgeois media, seeking to accredit posture 
"_rebelle_" and "_sociale_." They highlight his alleged "social" actions qu'Aube Golden 
uses for its promotion in the great tradition of fascist movements:



- Organization of soup kitchens on a racist basis for the only ? e ? s ? s ? the Greek, 
and emptied of their contents solidarity

- Blood donations exclusively for Greek ? that ? s

- Support of the elderly used to present themselves as "_chevaliers blancs_" against 
crime, they associate immigrants.

Besides these "social" activities, the fascist movement launched indoctrination courses 
for Greek children. It comes out of the workplace to ask employers to dismiss workers 
honest ? ? s ? e ? s abroad and hiring Greek ? that ? s. It also requires the expulsion of 
non-Greek children in nurseries.

The fascist movement pr?tenduement shows its support for honest worker ? ? s struggle but 
denounces all that popular struggles in presenting them as conducted by anarchists or 
communists against the Greek national interest. Dividing the honest worker ? ? ? that ? s 
Greek and migrants ? e ? s, attacking the popular struggles in the name of national 
interest, he shows his against-revolutionary social role. Against a social-revolutionary 
role which earned them the support of increasing fractions of the Greek bourgeoisie, we 
can also glimpse through the links customer qu'Aube Golden has with them. The fascist 
party has passed a tax law very friendly owners and designated as one of its sources of 
funding.

The Golden Dawn has support from the state apparatus, including the police, has further 
increased since the vast majority of police officers say their sympathy for the fascist 
movement. Cooperation policy-Golden Dawn took from their electoral progress, another 
dimension: a lot of police, for example, redirect assaulted to Golden Dawn, claiming 
"they, they can do nothing." The police remain passive in racist attacks, but conducts 
raids immigrant ? e ? s and suppresses self fascist.

The police and arrested and tortured participant ? e ? s anti-fascist motorcycle patrols 
organized by the libertarian movement to fight the fascist aggression. They have publicly 
released their names and addresses and those of their families, as well as designating 
targets known for its terrorist practices fascist organization.

Fight fascism in Greece and France

Yet despite this particularly difficult situation, develops a self antifascist movement of 
mass in Greece, which intends to oppose fascism on the ideological, social and physical. 
Within it, the libertarian movement plays an important role, which earned him a fierce 
repression by the state.

Alongside this antifascist movement of self rooted in neighborhoods continue to develop 
social struggles and self-organization practices (including agricultural production 
cooperatives bases), production under workers' control Vio.ME ( metallurgy) or the fight 
against mining Skourie, which destroys the lives of living ? e ? s in the region. These 
struggles, which have an anti-capitalist dimension, show that the popular movement is not 
dead in Greece, and pave the way for a social alternative to fascism, refocusing 
antagonism in the social field.

In Greece, as in France, in times of crisis, the fascist movement grows to be able to 
launch an assault on the power with the support of increasing fractions of the bourgeoisie 
and the support of part of the device State. The rise of fascism in Greece is part of a 
general movement in the world, and we can highlight many similarities between the French 
situation and the situation in Greece. Being aware allows us to learn and anticipate the 
responses to the predictable rise of an openly fascist movement in France, developing 
according to the same patterns on a background of deepening crisis and social cannibalism.

We need to develop the anti-fascist popular self defense, and the need for international 
solidarity in the face of repression, the fascist and state violence. At the same time, 
the development of popular struggles is essential to break the nationalist tendencies 
highlighting its cons-revolutionary role in the class struggle.

Lyon Group